Faqir of Ipi

Mirza Ali Khan, the Faqir of Ipi, was born about 1897 at Shankai Kirta in the Tochi Valley of North Waziristan, into the Tori Khel clan of the Utmanzai Wazir tribe, and was orphaned while still a boy.¹ He studied at Bannu and performed the Hajj in 1923, after which he settled at the village of Ipi, near Mirali, took the title Haji, and came to be called by the name of the village.¹

In 1936 the case of Islam Bibi — a Hindu girl who converted and married a Wazir tribesman, and whose marriage a British court annulled — gave him his cause: declaring jihad, he gathered the Wazir and Mahsud tribes and opened a guerrilla campaign that tied down tens of thousands of British and Indian troops through the Second World War.¹ British bombing of villages and hired tribal assassins failed to reach him, and at the end of the Raj he was still undefeated in the hills.¹

In June 1947 he and his allies, meeting at Bannu, passed the Bannu Resolution, refusing both India and Pakistan and demanding an independent Pashtunistan.¹ After partition he turned the same war against Pakistan, proclaiming Pashtunistan from Gurwek in 1949–50 and raiding across the border from Afghan support he accepted without ever leaving Waziristan.¹ He died on 16 April 1960, after long suffering from asthma, and his funeral prayer was held at Gurwek; he had never surrendered.¹

No source consulted names a school of law or a Sufi order for the Faqir of Ipi. The article records his religious studies, his standing as a religious figure and his introduction of sharia administration in Waziristan — formation and public role, which do not by themselves attest an affiliation. A single uncited local profile attributes Qadiriyya guidance to him; it is preserved in his record but, on its own, does not settle a school, so his faith is recorded as unknown.